Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan has rubbished claims by Highway Reroute Movement (HRM) leader Dr Wayne Kublalsingh that work has commenced on the Debe to Mon Desir leg of the highway.
Speaking yesterday during a news conference in Debe at the site of the uncompleted Oropouche river bridge which falls within the contentious leg of the highway, Sinanan also defended Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley. He said Kubalsingh made “some serious allegations and attacks” on the prime minister at his recent press conference at the office of the Movement for Social Justice.
“I want to rubbish the misinformation Mr Kublalsingh would have put in the public domain. One, that the highway from Debe to Mon Desir has restarted without consultation. We have not started that highway, what we are doing is we are protecting this bridge infrastructure and there is a connector road from Mon Desir to Fyzabad to bring relief for the people in that area. It is not in the wetlands. And it is part of the obligation that we have through the court of arbitration in London. Two, that Dr Rowley was responsible for the flooding because he built the embankment. Mr Kublalsingh needs to go back in the archives and see pictures of former minister Warner, Collin Partap and Rambachan, all having confrontations with him where he virtually confronted all of them and it is unfair that he can come now and forget about the past and blame Dr Rowley for the flooding.”
He insinuated that Kublalsingh’s claims were politically motivated. “He was sitting at the table with his political allies and we need to understand that when people are under severe pressure from flooding and different changes in climate changes and so we should not fan the fire and try to bring politics into everything,” he recalled, indicating to Kublalsingh in a meeting that the government had no intention at that point to restart the Debe to Mon Desir segment and that their focus was completing the segment from San Fernando to Point Fortin.
Noting that the meeting was now the subject of litigation against the government, he said, “I regret the day I did that (met with Kublalsingh) because that ended up as a matter in court.”
When highway contractor, OAS, was terminated in 2016, he said the government was able to recover $940 million from the contractor through the court. However, he said one of the conditions under that agreement was that the money has to be spent on certain aspects of work OAS was contracted to do.
Steve Garibsingh of Nidco said the segments included Dumfries to Point Fortin roundabout, Golconda to Penal and Mon Desir to Fyzabad. He said they were just completing the Oropouche river bridge to prevent the material from wasting away which was one of the conditions set out by the court.
“We are doing no other works in the area. This structure is wider than the existing bridge no way contributing to flooding in this area.”
Endorsing this view, NIDCO project manager Dennis Harricharan said the focus was the Dumfries to Dunlop segment and the projected completion time was late 2020, early 2021.
Ministry of Works and Transport acting chief technical officer, Navin Ramsingh, said the volume of traffic coming out of Debe had far exceeded the capacity of the SS Erin Road.
“This highway would have benefited this area in the sense that we would have substantially reduced traffic on SS Erin Road and Debe so people could get to Penal and environs easier.”
He said the improvement of drainage also formed part of the highway design.